Nie Nie Day Auction

Today is Nie Nie Day, August 28th, 2008! Today, this special day, the air is bursting with love, blessings, faith, healing, and many upon many earthly angels. May the Lord grant it that angels from heaven may not be restrained from us on this great day of giving and sharing and loving.

I like so many others across this vast blogging universe have been deeply touched by the tragedy and beauty of the Nielson Family. I only discovered the Nie Nie Dialogues recently through Design Mom. I am haunted by the true joy and love that poured fourth from the photos and written word of Ms Stephanie. I wanted to be a fly in that families house. I wanted to live next door to Nie. I wanted to be her friend. I wanted most of all, to have her, call me friend.

I can't shake this back to school dinner party post from my thoughts. It has inspired me to want a theme for my family. It has inspired me to talk and share its worth to all about me. Stephanie surely was in tune with the spirit as she planned this family party. What a wonderful gift and memory for her children to hold onto. And "Be Prepared"!? My goodness. My thoughts keep stumbling over what a blessing it is to her family that this young mother decided to share herself and children in a public blog. She welcomed the world and acted as a missionary of God, bringing all who tuned in, into her loving world.

I have a deep desire to do something for Stephanie & Christian and their beautiful children. I am offering a beloved shawl that I crocheted for myself nearly four years ago. I thought and thought about what I could offer. What I could do or make that would be Nie worthy. This shawl came to mind because of its vintage appeal and Nie loves vintage! The buttery soft, 100% cashmere is a pearly shade of white and the fiber was spun in Italy. The pattern was designed and the original crocheted in Russia by my favorite boss, Berta Karapetyan of School Products fame. One day she brought this shawl into work and I squealed in delight and adoration at it's sight! I begged to copy it and she happily obliged me.

All the proceeds of this silent auction of mine are going directly to the Stephanie & Christian Paypal account. Please leave your bids in my comments field. Does this part sound familiar? I am completely copying Gabby's words here from Design Mom! Don't know what I'm doing! So, as the auction for my Cashmere Crocheted Shawl progresses, bidders will need to check the most recent comments, to see what the current high bid is. I plan to leave the auction open till midnight PST Sunday evening, August 31st, 2008. Once the winning bidder is identified, they'll send their money directly to the Stephanie & Christian Paypal account. The winner will then forward the Paypal receipt to alicatknits@gmail.com. If you have any questions regarding the shawl please feel free to email me or leave a note in the comments. I suppose I should also mention that we have a smoke free home but we do have a 2yr old, 2 Chihuahuas and a kitten! I promise that the shawl is in perfectly new crocheted condition! Thank you so much for stopping by to look and happy bidding!

One final note I would like to part with are the words of Joseph Addison.

"Friendship improves happiness,
and abates misery,
by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief."

Blog Trouble Update

I was up way late last night and somehow or other I got the header and sidebar stuff to return. Thanks Blogger for planning on gals like me! But I don't know why there are gray squares covering parts of my written stuff and Hugo's photo. I tried to copy and paste in the post edits to make a new/old post but it didn't help. Still got the gray squares. Any suggestions? Oh, and I haven't given up on making my two column blog into a beautious three column blog! I think I might have to call Millie later and ask her a few questions first! Wish me luck.

An Update On My Update:
By posting something new it seems that the two big gray squares are gone! This is really weird. I think I need a book or possibly to take a class so I can understand some of this code stuff. Anybody know of a "Blog Code for Dummies" out there???

Big Smoke Trouble

Big Smoke Trouble is something that my Dad has always said to us and tonight it applies to me, his eldest, Alissa Anne. You see I was jealous. I coveted my sisters new blog layout. Wanted it to be mine, mine, mine right now. I emailed her earlier in the day and.... nothing. Didn't hear from her. Stinker. So, tonight I was up waiting for my Husband to call me and was bored of looking at my so simple two column blog. I dialed Ms Millie up annddd she answered! and she laughed at me because she knew why I was calling! Said she would email me the info tomorrow. Tomorrow wasn't good enough for me when I heard all the cool things she had found out how to do. Good sister that she is, she turned her computer back on and gave me not one link but two to check out. (!Smile!) But, I did it all wrong. As you can plainly see, I lost my header and all my fun side bar stuff. I also can't customize my page anymore, isn't even an option. I am in Big Smoke Blogging Trouble. I am super worried about losing all my posts if I try to mess with it anymore than I already have. I did email the gal whose tricks I tried to use and am hoping that she'll take pity on me and come to my blogging rescue real soon! So wish me luck and health to my post history please!

Sprinkler Magic

We had a wonderful playdate afternoon with lots of good friends. There was sprinkler magic, watermelon, wagon rides, army men, dinosaurs, a giant lizard and whale, bikes, a surprise visit from Evie, snake tunnel fun, smores (in the middle of the afternoon!) and a giant bonfire (also in the middle of the afternoon)!

As the afternoon came to a close, Shaka hollered out to her kids that it was time to get in the van. Well, Hugo was the first one to jump inside. He planted himself in a seat and was not coming out. Finally he was passed though a window to me, kicking and screaming at the top of his lungs. The kids all asked their Mother if Hugo could come home with them. Shaka said "Sure, okay". Then the boys made Hugo's year and asked if he could stay the night! Again, trooper that she is, Shaka said "Sure, okay". So, with that settled (not the sleeping over part), Hugo jumped into his repositioned car seat and never looked back. I watched them leave all the way down the drive and out. Then it hit me - I had been ditched! Ditched by my own 2yr old! He isn't even 2 1/2 until October and he is already happily ditching his Mother. I suppose it's good news, but it also makes me kinda sad.

A few hours later, when I pulled the car into their driveway, two things happened... A. my son yelled out, "Hide!" and ran to the backyard as quick as his two feet would carry him and B. the boys rode their bikes up to me and said what a bummer it was that I turned up because everyone wanted a sleepover with Hugo. I have never thought of myself as a party pooper. More like, the party goer, the party thrower, the party wont go homer! Ms Party Pooper is a new one for me. Will someone please send me my Ms Party Pooper crown in the mail soon, maybe a rush order even, because I have a feeling I'll be needing it often and soon!

The End!

Meow, Meow

We got a kitten! Somebody wanted the kitten because they are cute and cuddly and hopefully will turn out to be a good mouser. Another Somebody did not want the kitten because of the hassle with traveling, the litter box and because they didn't want us to become "that family", whatever that means?! Another Somebody or other wanted a kitten because he can say "cat" and cause they are cute and cuddly and because he fell in love with Grandpa Wayne's cat last Christmas. So, we got the kitten. Well, we actually called and told the Cat-offer-person that we couldn't have the cat because Somebody #2 said no and Somebody #1 was scared of the wrath of Somebody #2 if we, Somebodys #1 and 3, brought the kitten home. Problem was, that the Cat-offer-person didn't check his phone messages and showed up at the house with the super cute kitten just before Somebody #3's bedtime. How could Somebody #1 and 3 say no????

Somebody #2 took the "new kitten in our family, hope ya like her" news, pretty smoothly. Somebody #2 was even spied snuggling with said super cute kitten. And Somebody #2 even carried her into our bedroom for some nap time snuggle/sleep time with us! Who could resist her? Not Somebody #1, 2, or 3!

We did hit a bump in the road with the kitten late last night. Somebody #3 woke up at 4am and did his barefoot stomp through our room over to Somebody #2's side of the bed and crawled in. The commotion awoke our new super cute kitten from her slumber amongst the sheets. She started to race circles around the three of us somebodys like she was a pace car in the Indy 500. My eyeballs flew open and I thought we, Somebody #3 and I, were in big smoke trouble!! Somebody #2 was not going to be happy. I, Somebody #1, was not happy. I was very, very sleepy! Long story/night short, we eventually all ended up in our proper beds and slept in till 8:57am!!! That was so lovely, but it was a Sunday morning! Thus began our mad dash to get ourselves fed, animals pottyed, showered, dressed, scriptures rounded up, treats prepared and out the door for church! Whew... um, we were late...

In case you might be wondering, super cute kitty's name is Evie, short for Evelyn and we l-o-v-e, love her!

Dog Sitting

Today Hugo pretended to be asleep on my big pink chair. He even made fake snoring sounds!

Hugo recently discovered his shadow. We were walking back from the mailbox and I just so happened to have my camera in my pocket! I wonder if Hugo has watched one to many episodes of Winnie the Pooh? Tigger thought he had lost his shadow the other morning... I think somebody was paying attention.

We have been watching our canine friend Layla and Hugo has been in doggie heaven! He feeds her treats and tells her to sit and stop. She kinda listens to him, kinda. He tries to throw sticks for her but she grabs them out of his hand before he has a chance to release.

So, here we were playing in the yard. I wanted to take some photos of Hugo running about with Ms Layla but well, they were kinda quick for me. It was also kinda bright and hard to see for me. So, this is what I ended up with...




Oh yeah, these last two shots were fun. I had Hugo up, balancing on my feet doing the airplane thing. Ms Layla didn't get it. She thought she was missing out on the fun or possibly we were wrestling or possibly I was hurting him, I'm really not sure. Don't speak Chocolate Lab. Anyway, she was barky and antsy and finally charged us both knocking Hugo off my feet and in the process trampled all over me and the camera. Hugo was screaming, I was screaming and stupid Layla kept charging at us jumpin all around in circles while chasing her tail! The dumb dog. We quickly marched her bottom back into her crate and rewarded ourselves with some popsickles chilly, chill out of the freezer.

Popular Pool Toys

Hugo is a lot like Cesar. Have I mentioned this before? I think so. So here we are at the pool and what does the kid do for fun? Line up all the whales and sharks. Organization, organization, organization! Gotta be organized, just like his Poppa. Hugo does put his dirty clothes in the laundry basket and he does throw his own smelly diapers in the trash. But he hasn't caught on to putting his toys away at the end of the day. Or even when it isn't the end of the day, but when he is moving on to something new to play with. I gotta learn that clean-up song. "Clean up, Clean up, blah, blah, blah...blah...blah, blah, blah." something like that, right?! I hear other smarter mother's than me singing it once in awhile and I try to fake it like I know it but I don't and I feel stupid. But the dumb song works! I've seen all the kids join in "cleaning up" and singing right along with the adults, those who know the words at least, they sing along with! If that silly song would have been the one thing I could have learned at those Mommy & Me classes, which we never did attend, the song alone would have been worth the big bucks spent!

Hugo really likes to kiss right now. His kisses range from normal, to funny fish lip lookin kisses, the popular Eskimo nose kiss, the eyelash makin butterfly kiss, and the ever handy Portuguese double cheek kiss. Sometimes, I can't believe it but, I am just - kissed - out. No more kisses kid! And sometimes he wants to get all kissy in public while I am pushing him around in a cart somewhere and I wonder what others are thinking about us being all super kissy?! I don't understand why when I really, really want a kiss out of the kid it turns into a no-way-Jose situation. Not fair. Why can't all the kissy time kisses get spread around a bit? A daily ration ya know. Why?

Just so ya know, I did not set up the above dolphins and killer whales kissing. That was all Hugo. Organization and kissing, two great traits to come all preprogrammed from his Papa!

Green, Green Don't Go Away

I am dreaming in green.

I am breathing in the scent of fresh cut grass. Holding it deep within my lungs, afraid of what might happen when I exhale.

I am holding, grasping, klinging onto each and every precious last day of summer green.